Pillow Talk
by JAFootnote
Summary: Being open is hard. But marriage means sharing everything. In the end, it's entirely worth the risk.


There were many things Izaya refused to tell Shizuo. Of course, to counteract Izaya's wishes as always, these were mainly the things Shizuo insisted on hearing. And he was often subjected to things which Shizuo demanded he hear.

Izaya gasped as he was driven hard against the sheets, involuntarily tightening his legs around the beast's waist as he came. He shivered from the double sensation of Shizuo finishing inside of him and the beast growling his name against Izaya's pulse in that _stupid_ voice of his.

While they both attempted to calm their breathing, Izaya allowed the warm arms around him and Shizuo's heartbeat synchronizing with his own to lull him into the haze of afterglow. Izaya felt Shizuo's voice vibrating against his cheek and forced himself to listen to what the protozoan was saying.

"-you. Love you. Love you. I love you. Love you-"

The heel of his hand pressed roughly to Shizuo's temple did nothing to stop the ridiculous chant. " _Enough_." Izaya all but hissed as he made a more fervent attempt to push Shizuo's face away from his own. "Cut it out."

Shizuo met Izaya's glare with a raised brow. "Why?"

Why indeed. "Just get off of me already." Izaya dropped his legs to the bed and tried to squirm away from Shizuo who merely placed gentle but firm hands on his hips and maneuvered them both to lay on their sides, facing one another. The movement pressed Shizuo even deeper inside and Izaya most definitely did _not_ moan. Scowling, he turned away from Shizuo's stupid, smug face only to have warm hands accentuated by the minute cooling sensation of a small metal band turn his face back to the brute's.

After what felt like an eternity of meeting those coffee brown eyes which glinted with curiosity, Izaya sighed and rolled his own.

"You want to ask something, ne~ So ask it or let me go shower before Shizuko wakes up." Izaya was in no way ready to have to segue into _that_ conversation with his seven-year-old daughter after explaining why Mommy and Daddy were naked in bed. Ugh. Definitely not.

"Why aren't you speaking to your parents?"

Well, he wasn't expecting _that_. "What?" He deadpanned.

"You got really pissy after we took Shizuko to meet my folks,"

"I was _not_ 'pissy'."

"and I asked you when we were going to take her to visit yours." Izaya raised an elegant brow.

"You're asking this now?" To emphasize his point, Izaya wiggled his hips.

Shizuo's mouth quirked up slightly. "Figured since I had you here." Izaya frowned as Shizuo's face grew serious. "It's just that…" He ran his thumbs over Izaya's cheeks as he considered his words. "We're married but I feel like there's still so much I don't know."

Sadness trickled unpleasantly into Shizuo's expression and Izaya's jaw clenched beneath the idiot's hand. He wasn't sure which was more upsetting; Shizuo being genuinely hurt over something so trivial or him getting so upset because Shizuo was hurt. Both were distasteful.

"It's not a particularly nice story Shizuo." There. Izaya had warned him. He could feel a headache coming on already.

"Still." Shizuo responded, allowing the one syllable to hang in the air.

Izaya nodded slightly and Shizuo pressed his lips to Izaya's temple as he began.

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He hadn't noticed at first. Hadn't realized there was another thing that separated him from his classmates besides his accelerated mind and slightly higher economic status.

His mother and father were just that. Two beings who were biologically responsible for his existence. The word association ended there.

Even at the age of six, he felt no particular need to justify his inclination toward observation. He liked it so he did it. There was no deep, festering question concerning humans which drove his need to watch them so attentively (frantically). Not at first.

The incident itself was so innocuous and banal that he wasn't sure what about it caught his attention. Chattering could be heard all around as the kindergarteners shouldered their tiny backpacks, prepared to be picked up or leave on their own. Izaya was always part of the latter group. He was fully capable of finding his own way home.

Beside him, one of his classmates stood, eyebrows furrowed as she dazedly passed a rock between her shoes. Suddenly, her name was called and she looked up, her entire expression brightening. With a cry of "Mommy!", the little girl jubilantly bounded over to the woman who called her. Entranced, Izaya watched as the woman knelt and caught the excited child in her arms, hugging her tightly.

Izaya _had_ seen this kind of interaction before. It wasn't new; it happened everyday outside the kindergarten. Maybe it was just that such attention-no that wasn't right. What's the word?-was personally alien to him. Whatever the reason, watching the display had caused something to burn in the pit of his stomach like when he decided to rifle through his father's restricted shōchū cabinet. Neither the burn nor the bruise had faded.

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The image played itself over and over again in Izaya's mind. To what end? He had no idea. It was a puzzle to be solved so he tried the first thing that came to mind: imitation.

His parents were always either on business trips, one of them begrudgingly staying behind for propriety's sake, or barricaded behind some door with their paperwork and their pagers less than an arm's length away. It wasn't rare for Izaya to go weeks without hearing more than three words from them.

Surprisingly, one day his mother set up her base of operations at the extremely accessible dining room table. Her black hair was held back in a tight bun (that must have been uncomfortable were she a _normal_ human being), leaving her eyes free to concentrate on the figures in front of her. She didn't look up as Izaya nimbly climbed onto the chair beside her. Nor did she look up when tiny arms tentatively-because who knew if she would bite-wrapped around her neck in a cautious mimicry of a filial embrace.

No, she didn't look up. But her next words made Izaya wish she had at least given him _that_. "Izaya." The disgust in her tone was enough to make him retract. "You know not to bother me when I'm working. And stop climbing all over the furniture; you're not an animal so don't behave like one. Honestly, you are turning out to be more trouble than you're worth."

Silently, Izaya lowered himself to the floor and left the room- _not_ crying, _not_ hurt-just a little irritated that she hadn't looked up once.

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No, he didn't need much more proof than that. But evidence pointing to just how irrelevant he was, just happened to be the one thing Izaya's parents were generous with. Whether it was failing to notice an alarming fever (which sent him to the hospital after he passed out during recess) or attributing said fever to his constant need to annoy them-

Frustrated and weary, he listened from the back seat of the car, his mother doing her best to nullify the effects of the pain relievers and fever reducers.

"-in the middle of a meeting with a very important client. You really couldn't have picked a better time to do this? Your father's very upset. Because of you he may lose the deal he was negotiating. You weren't dying so I can't see why this couldn't have waited." Izaya bitterly doubted that either of them would have rushed to his bedside if he had been dying; at least not without reminding him of how much of an inconvenience he was-

Izaya was never given a moment to forget his own lack of importance.

He couldn't really understand why they had more children. But Izaya became a big brother at the age of eight to a pair of twins who he had no problem believing had come out of the womb clasping hands. More often than not, the three were left alone in the house, Izaya being deemed old enough to watch and, for the most part, raise two little girls. He wasn't. But it wasn't like they cared.

Kururui and Mairu never gave their parents more than a glance, more interested in each other or their cryptic 'Iza-nii'. Sometimes, if they were feeling bored or mischievous enough, they would barge into his room and pester him into paying attention to them. Izaya quickly gave up trying to stop them (because seriously, where did Kururui learn to pick a lock?).

When it was just the three of them, it was peaceful. When one of their parents came home from a business trip, it was decidedly less so. When both were home, Izaya would feverishly wish one, or preferably both, would take off again. One leaving would have been enough though. Having both of them in the house left the place with a lot less oxygen.

It was usual for his parents to invite clients or colleagues over for dinner. The Orihara siblings always knew to make themselves scarce on these occasions. For Izaya, this was no real loss; the humans who associated with his mother and father weren't interesting studies.

On one night in particular, Izaya noticed one guest especially and made sure to remind the twins to lock the door to their room. This was a man who Izaya's father was bending over backwards to impress, probably to secure some kind of incentive. To Izaya he was only some slimy, balding man who he had caught looking at his eight-year-old sisters one too many times. So whenever he saw this man walk through the front door, Izaya always told Mairu and Kururui to keep their own door locked.

Izaya could hear the boisterous words and feigned guffaws as he laid on his bed, browsing favorited chat rooms on his phone. He must have fallen asleep at some point because the next thing he knew he was being awoken by…a hand? Yes, that was definitely a hand, clumsily trying to make its way into his pants. He almost wretched when the stench of sake burned his nose and the sensation of something wet appeared on his neck.

Fully awake, Izaya shoved against the body in front of him and slid to the head of his bed, grabbing the blade he kept on his bedside table. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but they only confirmed what he already knew. So he hadn't been looking at the twins after all.

Leveling his knife at the man in front of him, Izaya bit out, "Get out. Now."

Clearly not understanding the situation he was in, the man grinned drunkenly back at Izaya. "Why?" Izaya's eyes flicked momentarily to the hand that inched toward his thigh as the man attempted to crawl forward. "I thought we could spend a little time together, Orihara-kun."

Izaya's hand moved faster than either of them could see and Izaya watched in disgust as his opposite confusedly brought his hand up to his face, failing to register the knife that was now lodged in it. The first streams of blood falling from the wound seemed to wake him up.

With a yowl of pain, he leapt off of Izaya's bed and cradled his hand to his chest. After the initial shock passed, the man turned furious eyes on Izaya. "You little SHIT!" He made to lunge at Izaya who was immediately on his feet armed with another knife.

"What's going on here?!" The man stumbled and turned to Izaya's father who was standing shocked in the doorway. His eyes shifted to the man and before Izaya could open his mouth to tell him _exactly_ what was going on, Izaya's father's expression turned to one of horror. "Amane-San, what happened?!" Izaya watched in disbelief as his father fretted over the sick bastard.

'Amane-San' looked outraged at Izaya's father. "I'll tell you what happened!" He pointed an accusatory finger at Izaya whose lip curled in disgust. "Your _brat_ just assaulted me! With a _knife_! I don't know what kind of monster you've been raising but if you think we'll have any more to talk about after _this_ ," he shifted his injured hand in indication, "you are sorely mistaken." With that, he stormed out of Izaya's room, the sound of the front door slamming shut heard not long after.

"Do you have any idea what you've just done?" Incredulous, Izaya turned to his father who glared at him with barely controlled anger. "You've ruined _everything_. Everything I've been working so hard for this past year. Anything you have to say for yourself?" Izaya could only stare. His father huffed in disgust before he angrily exited the room.

For what felt like forever, Izaya stared at the space his father had just occupied. Then, he let out a small chuckle which became a series of chuckles before evolving into full blown laughter. He had asked if _Amane-San_ was alright. Not what he was doing in his teenage son's bedroom. Then he turned on Izaya for being the sacrificial lamb who fought against its own slaughter. So he knew.

Izaya, still laughing, held his sides and slid to his bedroom floor. He couldn't stop. It was all just too _funny_. He had already been well aware that his parents never once looked on him with any kind of affection. But this had been unexpected which made it funnier still.

Among the humor, was something that amazed Izaya. Through sheer force of will his parents had successfully avoided feeling anything towards their son for sixteen years. It said a lot about them but something about him too.

He wasn't meant to be loved. But that was fine because _he could_ love _them_ , he could love everyone. Every single human on the planet. He would adore humans (in all their malicious, self-serving glory) and their faults. And he would be at best despised by everyone and that hatred would just make him love them more. He'd be their god and they his monsters. He would be-

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Izaya's breath was forced out of him when Shizuo pulled him flush against his chest. Tired and more than a little annoyed at being interrupted, Izaya opened his mouth to voice his complaint before feeling the words die on his lips when he took in the sporadic jerking of Shizuo's shoulders. Izaya sighed softly. He had warned him, hadn't he? Shizuo always had the crippling propensity to feel when he shouldn't.

He attempted a jocular tone. "Ne, Shizu-Chan what part of my story has you so worked up? Was it my mom being an icy bitch or my dad being fine with letting that man-"

"Izaya I love you."

"Wha-"

"I love you. So _fucking much_. I love you. I love you. I love-" Izaya pushed away from Shizuo's chest to glare up at him. They had really just gone in one big circle, hadn't they?

"What's with you Shizu-Chan?" He fought to keep his voice annoyed despite the dampness on Shizuo's cheeks and lashes. "How long are you planning to keep saying that?" The brute gently grabbed Izaya's hand and pressed his lips to the finger with the ring.

"Until I make up for all that time you spent thinking no one loved you. Especially those six years I'm responsible for."

Izaya felt his chest tighten and a raw feeling appeared in his throat. That usually happened whenever Shizuo decided to say something stupid. "And how long will that take?" He asked in a whisper. Coffee eyes regarded him with that look that he could never stare at for too long without making his eyes burn.

The blonde threaded their fingers together and placed his forehead against Izaya's, nuzzling slightly. "The rest of our lives."

Izaya closed his eyes, allowing Shizuo to continue his rant through the tender press of lips against his and decided he could live with that.

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 _My first one shot, ne. Achievement unlocked I suppose. It has been a while, I know. Life gets in the way especially at points when we need it not to. But then from one battlefield to another. I know someone(s) will retaliate against my depiction of Izaya's childhood. "He said he had a normal childhood" they'll say. Yes, yes he did. But from my understanding of psychology and Izaya's character foundation, mightn't he simply be lying? Given his grandiose vision of himself, saying he had a normal childhood would surely succeed in making him more of the outlier he wishes to be (and is). Or maybe like the Joker, Izaya prefers his past, if he is to have one at all, to be multiple choice._

 _Well I confirm or deny nothing. This is an epilogue to "Goodbye is a Second Chance". There are more on the way. Please read them if you are so inclined. Also, thanks to Nouvoux who encouraged me to write in the first place and who I hope will be returning to the fandom soon._

 _Thank you for reading._


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